S4E3 - The Toolbox (self care strategies from past guests)

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Mike Rothschild: Whatever viral threads going around, if I miss it. There's going to be another one. As much as this stuff penetrates into our daily discourse, it does not require my attention. Twenty four seven. And I think more highly of myself than to do that.

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Chris: Welcome to cult or just weird. Are we just gonna start with this? Just start with nothing.

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Kayla: I'm Kayla.

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Chris: I'm Chris, and this is Cult or Just Weird. Just weird.

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Kayla: We gotta get our shit together.

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Chris: Let's do it again.

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Kayla: We still don't know the way to introduce this podcast. I don't think we need to do it again. I just think we need to admit to our listeners that four seasons in, we are still figuring ourselves out.

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Chris: This was just. Welcome to culture. Just weird. I'm Chris. I'm a game designer and data scientist.

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Kayla: I'm Kayla. I am a tv writer, currently unemployed. Hire me.

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Chris: But then the thing is, it's like then I want to say, and this is, you know what I mean? Like that.

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Kayla: Then do it that way. Try it that way. Say hey.

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Chris: So just names first and then call to sweet.

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Kayla: I'm Chris. I am.

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Chris: You're Kayla.

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Kayla: Okay. Introduce yourself.

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Chris: I'm Chris and I'm a data scientist and game designer.

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Kayla: I'm Kayla, I'm a television writer.

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Chris: And this is cult or just weird.

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Kayla: Welcome to the show, our podcast. Sorry, I stopped.

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Chris: We almost had it. That was pretty good, though.

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Kayla: Well, we'll have it better next time.

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Chris: How are you doing today, Kayla?

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Kayla: You know what? I know what you're talking about in this episode, so I don't. Should I say how I really am doing if it spoils your topic?

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Chris: I don't know.

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Kayla: Are you doing really poorly, honestly, in some need of some self care?

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Chris: Oh, you are?

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Kayla: I am. And I'm not saying that just to tee you up. I'm saying that because I just finished up a job. And so now I am in that post job phase where.

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Chris: Malaise. Malaise phase.

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Kayla: Not even malaise, but where I know, like, okay, I can do all the things that I've been putting off, but also my body needs to rest. But also I have adhd, so it's really hard to, like, actually rest and not constantly be going. And also there's just a lot of other things to do. So I'm like, I gotta do all the things. And I'm not taking the time to, like, shower every day or go for a walk every day or have a cup of tea or have coffee with.

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Chris: You in the tea.

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Kayla: Well, now tea's ruined better than others. I'm just saying, I'm in a phase of my life right now where I could really do with a reminder on how to care for oneself. So I'm very interested in what you have for us today. Spoiling it for the audience.

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Chris: Gotcha. I mean, it sounds like you're probably beyond help.

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Kayla: I'm always beyond help.

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Chris: Yeah. I mean, your situation just sounds dire.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Well, before we get to that, we do need to do some business, which specifically is, if you want to hear more cultures weird, go to our patreon and sign up just like these next three folks did. Thank you so much to instantly joyous David Whiteside and Jade a, all who signed up for our Patreon over these past two weeks. Thank you so much for supporting the show.

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Kayla: Did you say Jade egg?

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Chris: No a. The letter a. Jade a. Like the Yoni egg. Like the. Like the goop egg?

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Kayla: Yeah. Don't say goop egg.

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Chris: Well, it's a goop egg.

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Kayla: Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness company scam egg that you put in your vagina.

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Chris: It's from. Literally, the company is goop. Yeah, probably gets a little goopy.

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Kayla: Stop.

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Chris: It's really perfect. But no Jade a. Just the letter a. And we really shouldn't be making apologies.

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Kayla: To associate you with the Jade egg.

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Chris: Jade a.

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Kayla: Thank you for this is just a.

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Chris: Person who is supporting us, not we shouldn't be associated.

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Kayla: Yeah, thank you for supporting us.

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Chris: So yeah, Kayla, you just mentioned how we can never drink any tea anymore because it's all ruined. So I think it's appropriate to begin today's episode by doing like a nice smooth segue from our last episode. I'm not going to do the usual thing where we tell people to shut off the podcast and go download that one and listen to it instead. But I am going to say at the top of the show here that we are going to be building off of that topic, the topic of self care. And before I go any further, I just want to reemphasize a point that you made last episode. Specifically. Nobody, nobody should feel bad or guilty or even awkward about drinking any brand of tea, celestial or otherwise. And I want to extend that to other aspects of our collective existence too.

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Chris: Dont feel guilty if you cant afford a Tesla and need to fill your car up with hydrocarbon fuel to go to work. Dont feel bad because you own some lularoe leggings and maybe you even have a pair you kinda like. Im going to go so far to say that if youre a person of privilege white or otherwise, in our society, its counterproductive for you to feel guilty for participating in a culture that you didn't really have a hand in building. There's a reason why this podcast has a seeming never ending flow of content.

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Chris: There's a reason why so often things will happen to you like they happened to Kayla when she was doing the research for last episode, where you're like you're just trying to enjoy some goddamn tea, and then you peek under the rock and oh shit, there's some ugly and dangerous racism under there. Our culture is transitioning, and God willing, we all live long enough to witness more fruits of that transitioning. But what we are transitioning away from is a bedrock of, and especially in America, colonialism and puritanism. Now don't straw man me here. This is not me saying that the american experiment is inherently 100% evil all the time. Americans have many achievements to be proud of, and some of them are even ethical, so don't get caught up on that.

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Chris: But what I am saying is that if you build things on a bedrock of slavery, or of forced population relocation of native people, and of empire building, well, that turns into things like redlining, or problematic police enforcement, or even weirdos like John Kellogg. And since none of this stuff happened very long ago, well, that means that you might find yourself eating some perfectly innocent breakfast cereal that has a pretty monstrous origin story. But it's important for us to not get caught up in the guilt and the shame of all these various institutions that we've inherited. It's not good for you. You don't deserve it. And it doesn't help make anything better. If you want to separately help make the world a better place to live, then that is awesome. Cool. Go. Go do some beach cleanup or something. I don't know.

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Chris: I'm just pulled that right out of the air. But, you know, if you want to do something like that's awesome. But it's going to be lowest stakes of fixing.

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Kayla: This is demonic, actually.

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Chris: Well, actually, Kayla, there's been some research done on what the source of ocean gyre garbage is.

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Kayla: What's ocean gyretainous?

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Chris: Like the Pacific garbage patch.

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Kayla: That's gyre, though.

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Chris: Gyre is just a word for the circular motion of the water on a large scale.

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Kayla: Never heard that.

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Chris: Anyway, most trash in the ocean actually does float back and forth between beaches for a very long time before it actually goes out to the deep ocean. So cleaning up beaches is actually cleaning up the ocean, as a matter of fact.

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Kayla: Good to know.

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Chris: And I also wouldn't say, if you only go to the beach and pick up one piece of trash, fuck you. That's not enough. No, go do it. Pick up one piece of trash and don't worry about it. That's kind of what I'm saying here, right? Like, it's going to be hard to consistently try to make a world a better place if you're constantly worrying about, like, whether every step you take might be through a redline district or every sip of tea you take might have a history of eugenics.

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Kayla: Guilt and shame is not.

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Chris: Doesn't help anyone.

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Kayla: Powerful motivators for making change. If you want to make change, then you kind of have to ask the guilt and the shame. I don't know if I'm putting that word right. Eskew esu.

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Chris: A s k e w e s.

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Kayla: C h e u. I think it's eschew. Eschew.

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Chris: Escu.

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Kayla: Well, just guilt and shame are traps. Try not to fall into them.

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Chris: And I will even go one step further and say, like, don't even, like, let go of even the, oh, this must be for societal change. And just try to let go of the guilt and shame for your own benefit. It's for you. And then the societal change can come when you are healthy and you, all that stuff is like, I think needs to be like a. It can't be the reason that you are not feeling guilty about drinking whatever.

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Kayla: Tea you're drinking one day in a different episode. We will. Maybe we'll do, yeah, we'll do an episode this season on what personal stake means when it comes to steak. Social justice issues, systemic issues, your place in the struggle for change.

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Chris: Yes, but this episode is about personal self care. So I know last episode you didn't really wind up even really getting into the self care aspects.

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Kayla: Obviously, I want to do self care. Oh. Racism.

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Chris: You were like, oh, t. T is nice. And then, yeah, you sort of fell down a bit of a rabbit hole.

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Kayla: Here's a problem. Anyway, bye.

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Chris: Right, but that's where you started. You started with the self care stuff, and that was your jumping off point. There are other tools in both of our self care toolboxes other than just drinking a nice hot beverage, which we'll get to. But it got me wondering, what are other folks carrying around in their self care toolboxes? Is there some actionable info for us there for our audience?

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Kayla: Is there?

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Chris: Do you like that voice that, I just have no idea why I did that. I really don't.

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Kayla: I hope that your answer is no. There's not.

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Chris: No. Get fucked. This has been culture just weird.

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Kayla: Bye bye, man.

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Chris: But, like, that would be really funny.

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Kayla: That would be. Truth be told. It really does feel like that sometimes, though. It really does feel like in our current society where, like, wages are zero, everything is extremely expensive. You can't afford to live in an apartment. You can't afford to live in a house. You can't afford your healthcare. It, like, really feels like racism is rampant and going unacknowledged. People are getting killed in the streets. Like, whatever. There's huge wars happening. The world's on fire. It really feels like, okay, yeah, there's nothing you can do. Bye. But there are things we can do.

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Chris: There are things we can do. And we could also talk ad nauseam about how difficult it can be, how much of a challenge, and that you shouldn't be faced with all of the self care. Like, you shouldn't have to, like, overcome all of these insane things that are happening. Unfortunately, that's the reality. I kind of want to go back to what we talked about in the very first episode of the season where it's like, yeah, we shouldn't have to deal with this fire hose of shit, of misinformation. Like, this should be something that the people in power should be taking care of. This should be something that we have systems to combat. And it sucks that this falls onto us, the individual, just like everything else. I wish it didn't. It's super unfair that it does, given that it does.

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Chris: Here's some stuff to do. Like, that's kind of what that episode was about. Like, for misinformation, maybe this is kind of what this episode is about, but in terms of, like, helping keep yourself healthy and sane.

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Kayla: Right. How to cope with the situation. And I think that I've seen this conversation happen a lot more now about reckoning with the fact that, like, there are aspects of our society that we can't, like, mental health away, that we can't like, therapy away, that we can't self care away. And that's so real and valid. Like, it is frustrating to be told maybe by a therapist or a doctor that, like, oh, these feelings that you're having are the result of cognitive distortions when maybe they're actually the result of, like, having a minimum wage job and an apartment that costs more than you make in a month.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: And also, regardless of the realities that our systems put us in, having ways to cope with those realities. Like, that's necessary for anyone, regardless of your level of privilege, I think.

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Chris: And that's kind of our, you know, kind of our theme for this season, too, right. Is like actionable stuff that will help you. So hopefully some of these things that we'll talk about today will fall into that bucket. And so if we're looking for other folks toolboxes, other folks self care toolboxes, I figured why not tap into our very own cult or just weird trust network?

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Kayla: Ooh, you're doing the voice again.

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Chris: Why I'm doing the voice again? I don't even know what the.

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Kayla: I don't know either. But you can keep doing it if you want.

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Chris: I would like to not. So I figured, yeah, why not ask people we already know and like. So a few weeks ago, I sent an email to literally every single guest we've had on the show here before, even people we interviewed offline, and I asked them about their self care practices, and I actually got a pretty robust response.

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Kayla: People want to talk about this stuff.

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Chris: Out of the 22 guests we've had on the show, or 26 if you count offline interviews and patreon content, 27 if you count tulpas. It's actually, like, not, it's a little mincer than that because, like, I didn't, there's some, like, you didn't ask.

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Kayla: Every single tulpa that I talked to and you didn't ask every single.

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Chris: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, that's the number of emails that I sent. We got twelve responses.

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Kayla: Damn.

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Chris: Want to hear what friends of cult or just weird had to say?

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Kayla: I really do.

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Chris: Good. But first, sources. Actually, wait. These folks are the sources for this episode, so I guess we'll just take care of that as we go along. For reference, though, here is the prompt that I sent to folks. What are some of the self care strategies, processes, activities, etcetera, which you personally employ in order to stay healthy, fulfilled, and or sane or struggle to do so? If the case may be an addendum, especially if your work or your hobbies involve crummy topics like extremism research, end quote. So you'll notice that missing from the prompt is like a precise definition of self care. I think that's okay. I think there's a good shared understanding of the meaning of the phrase, and I deliberately wanted folks to kind of answer how they saw fit.

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Chris: But my own personal understanding, the phrase is similar to the things you would get from, say, dictionary.com, which is the act of attending to one's physical or mental health, generally without medical or other professional consultation, or from lexico.com. Comma the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well being and happiness in particular during periods of stress. So I think those are pretty close to how I would define the word myself.

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Kayla: I would say self care means, oh.

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Chris: Let'S get the kayla definition.

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Kayla: That's the end of the taking care of yourself.

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Chris: Ooh. Wow. That is so insightful.

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Kayla: I know.

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Chris: Thank you. That added a lot.

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Kayla: I'm a writer.

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Chris: All right, let's see. Didn't you just ask for a job?

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Kayla: Give me a job. You can expect gems like that.

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Chris: All right, so let's see what our friends had to say. I will start with Doctor Gorski, since he's the record holder here on the show. He's been guest on cult are just weird. Twice. Once was to talk about anti Vaxx back at the beginning of last season, and once was in our first season to talk about epigenetics and mTh far mthfr.

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Kayla: You forgot that. You forgot.

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Chris: Anyway, that's season three, episodes one and two, and season one, episodes 18 and 19, if you're curious. But Doctor Gorski had to say, I'm not sure I have answer for this other than going to the gym. I don't know that I have anything I'd call a mental health routine, end quote.

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Kayla: Doctor Gorski.

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Chris: Well, I thought that was, I mean, I wanted to, I didn't want to, like, paraphrase that because I thought it was important to hear that, like, yeah, sometimes it's like, it's hard to. To make time for yourself. Sometimes it's hard to. And especially with him, he's like super busy.

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Kayla: Forget what Doctor Gorski's life is.

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Chris: He's a surgeon.

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Kayla: Just a like, science and skepticism blogger who does a lot of work actively combating people coming, popping up with these bad ideas on the daily. Yeah, he's also a practicing surgeon.

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Chris: Right. However, we did chat, I did reply to him and we chatted a little bit about. I was like, hey, what about your puppy rescuing? I'm pretty sure that counts. And he was like, oh, yeah, okay. You can talk about that, right?

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Kayla: The puppy rescuing.

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Chris: I know. Yeah. So have you've seen his instagram, right?

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Kayla: I have. I have not looked at it recently, but I backed off.

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Chris: Yeah, it's puppies.

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Kayla: Yeah, it's puppies.

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Chris: It's great.

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Kayla: It's puppies. Puppies in gym. Great puppies. And moving your combo. Awesome combo.

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Chris: We also heard from Mister Travis Vue of the QAnon Anonymous podcast whom we interviewed last season. If you listen to that episode. We did ask him a very similar question.

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Kayla: Yeah. Near the end of last season, we started asking people this. Clearly, we're building up to this season, right.

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Chris: This is the episode where we're just sort of like, let's just lean into it and just ask everyone and get it out of the way. But I'll say he was remarkably consistent on this front. My main mental health strategy is just going for a hike and taking pictures. It's helpful because it's the exact opposite of the kind of work I do for QAnon. Anonymous when researching QAnon or extremism, I try to find human created ugliness in the digital world. But while hiking and taking pictures, I try to find beauty in the natural, physical world. I have an infrequently updated instagram where I post my favorite photos.

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Kayla: I love this so much because that's something that I've noticed in myself, both with, you know, the quote unquote, work we do for the podcast. And also, just like my life, I spend a lot of time mentally in the digital realm.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: And it's really hard to remember to look up and be in the physical world. And it's so important to remember that we live in this world. This is the world that we live in, not the world on the phone. And obviously, that's a very privileged position to be in, where I'm like, I spend all my time on my phone. And also, it's the reality for millions and millions of people that we are.

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Chris: Kayla, this is a guilt free episode.

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Kayla: I'm not talking about guilt. I'm talking about acknowledging the reality that when I talk about self care, I'm coming from a very middle class perspective.

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Chris: Sure.

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Kayla: And that is not the perspective that a lot of people have, of course. And I don't want to. I never want to ignore that fact, because I do think in these conversations about self care, that can get ignored.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: And again, not coming from a place of guilt or shame. I have no guilt or shame around that.

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Chris: Good.

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Kayla: Actually, I probably do, but I'm trying not to project it here. Anyway, I really respond to that idea of if you find yourself spending too much time or feeling like you're spending too much time in a digital realm, if you have the means to remind yourself to be in the physical world, like, take those. Take that time to do that.

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Chris: Yeah. Maybe we should have prefaced with this, but we, obviously, we are not medical professionals giving medical advice. This is just us telling you guys things that we do and things that our guests do. Hopefully that'll jog your creativity or motivation in this area. But I'll, you know, along those lines, I'll say that I remember when we used to take walks towards the beginning of the pandemic when everything was granted, everything is seems crushingly oblique now, too.

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Kayla: But different kind of crushingly bleak.

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Chris: Different kind of crushingly bleak. Going outside for a walk after being inside all day, like scrolling twitter and seeing like such and such. Shutdown, NBA shut down. This city has these deaths, constantly tracking the number of deaths, constantly tracking the hospitalizations, going outside, being reminded like, oh, the outside is still here, right? The earth continues to spin, right? There may be bad things happening, but, you know, the sun continues to rise and set. It's a nice thing to ground yourself that way. I think so. I do like Travis's approach.

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Kayla: Touch grass.

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Chris: Touch grass, folks. We also talked to Mister Matthew Remsky of the Conspiratoriality podcast last year. I think it was this consecutive episode with our Travis Vue interview. He got back to us on this as well, which is good, since if you listen to our first episode this season, you know that the season's theme is partially a result of our chat with him. And as you may know from listening to our show, he is a very thoughtful communicator. He tells us, well, you got me going. More than two sentences, I'm afraid. Please attribute to Matthew Remsky, co host of Conspiratoriality podcast, because in my email, I said like, oh, no, more than two sentences is fine, because I didn't want to, like, pressure people. Yeah, I don't want to pressure people.

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Chris: I didn't want to like, say, like, you owe me a bunch of paragraphs or whatever. And then he says, thanks for asking. People rarely do. And I think it's pretty crucial for me. The real dangers of this work become apparent when I feel myself wither with cynicism about impossible tasks and curdle with hatred for sociopaths. These are necessary pathways. Tasks can always be reframed for workability and meaning. And there's no point in hating sociopaths. They can't feel it and wouldn't care if they did. They are running a different operating system. My personal corrective for the cynicism is to recognize that cultic dynamics are quite mundane. They're not a bug of human societies, but ubiquitous enough to almost be a core feature. A cult is an exploitation machine, just like late capitalism. Instead of resources, it extracts emotional capital. Both exploit labor.

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Chris: In both, the profits flow to the top and the shit rolls downhill. When you're inside one or the other, you may feel like something is wrong, but it takes a lot of effort to break the spell. Thinking of the cult as a hotspot or intensification of how the larger system works relieves me of the misanthropic feeling that some zones of human community cults are just irreparably gross or cancerous. It's more like the whole body of humanity is vulnerable, and in some parts, the vulnerability is accelerated. So you study the acceleration and help those survivors as a noble task, but also because it teaches you something about the larger systems of power and oppression.

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Chris: I have personally found that it feels a lot better to work with cultic dynamics in a way that speaks to the whole culture, rather than speaking into a distinct zone of trauma. It helps me get out of my own story at the appropriate time. There's something comforting and depersonalizing about this broader political lens. It means that anti cult work can be done in many ways. Organizing for human rights becomes anti cult work. Fighting for the marginalized or for climate justice becomes anti cult work. And that means you can spend a little less time thinking about fucking cults. As for shit, which I would love to do over the end. As for shifting hatred for sociopaths, as I said, it's like hating a stone. It's just there, and it won't give a shit.

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Chris: So what I'm trying to do these days is lean into the lesser villains I learn about, and think about how much pain it costs to have those levels of narcissistic need. It helps my heart to consider it, and to see the child and the man to wonder what went wrong. Then I naturally look at my own children a little differently, think more broadly about their needs, and feel more patience wash over me. It must suck so hard to be malignant, terrified of losing power over others, because you're actually nothing inside. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And when I really feel this empathy, I am somehow refreshed.

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Chris: Finally, I haven't been as inspired by anyone as much as by the people I've interviewed who have lost their partners or family members to conspirituality or cults, and yet maintain their love and care for them. People can weather so much, and taking in those stories fills me up. End quote. As we said, the man is away with words.

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Kayla: The end. End of the show. Thank you for all of that. Okay. There's a lot going on in that response, and I think that you should probably.

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Chris: I don't know, there's a lot to.

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Kayla: Unpack, post the text somewhere for folks to read because that's something beautiful to continue to return to because there's a lot going on. The thing that I have in my head to immediately respond to is pointing out that basically all healing work, all justice work, all peeling back the, like, the layers to look at the darkness underneath all of that, all that work is interconnected. And I think for a lot of people that maybe feel compelled to talk about these kinds of things or feel compelled to try and enact change in the world or fix systems or right the wrong, when you feel drawn to that kind of stuff, it's really difficult to not feel drawn to all of it and feel responsible for taking care of all of it.

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Kayla: I have to go to every protest for every cause, and I have to donate to every cause, and I have to do every event. And if I'm not, okay, so if I'm, if I focus on healthcare over here, then I'm not focusing on climate change. And if I'm focusing on racism over here, then I'm not focusing on zoning laws in my state that'll rip your brain apart. Voter rights. And then if I'm not doing all of it, then who's gonna do it? Well, luckily there are 8 billion of us on this planet, and we've got a great little swiss cheese system going where if you've got some cheese, we all have the ability to enact change in small ways that then contributes to greater change. I can't do it all. You can't do it all. But if I can.

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Chris: Hello. Speak for yourself over there.

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Kayla: If I do my little corner of work over here and you do your little corner of work over there, and enough people do that, then that's enough. Like, swiss cheese is overlapping so that there's no one's going through the.

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Chris: Whole swiss cheese metaphor. Okay?

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Kayla: That's like, that's like what they do with airplane stuff. Like airplane safety is a swiss cheese thing.

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Chris: Redundant systems? Is that what you're talking about?

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Kayla: Yeah, redundant systems. And, like, enough swiss cheeses get stacked up, there's no holes going all the way through. Right?

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Chris: It's like way too much swiss cheese, though. That's like a big block of cheese.

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Kayla: Anyway, what I'm saying, very strong tasting cheese. If you are doing work in the, if you're donating money to climate justice, that little corner of work has a ripple effect that affects all of the other things that you're concerned about. If you're worried about homelessness, prevention or homelessness outreach. If you are working in a healthcare justice space, you're affecting that. Everything that you, any little thing that you do in order to heal these larger systems contributes to all of it. And so that's really. It's hard for. I think it's really hard for the people that are worried about those things to remember that and to take that in and to really feel that and internalize it of I cannot do it all, and trying to do it all is going to make me do nothing.

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Kayla: And so I need to find my little corner of work and trust that other people are doing their little corners of work. And together we're working towards the goal of healing it all.

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Chris: Yeah. If you're the type of person that's interested in activism, you're going to be the type of person that. It's hard to compartmentalize, as you just said. Right. If you're the type of person that's interested in activism, it's going to be hard to say, like, well, I'm only interested in this kind. Some people can compartmentalize, and that's great. Good for them. But, like, for a lot of. For a lot of activists, it's hard to do that. And I think you're right that, like, having a particular focus can help you, it can help the cause. And it kind of ties into a little bit of what we talked about earlier in this episode. Like, you know, don't be crippled by guilt and shame. Like, not only can't you fix everything, it's not your responsibility to fix everything.

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Kayla: And understanding that is definitely self care.

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Chris: Absolutely.

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Kayla: Acknowledging your. I don't even want to use the word limitations. Acknowledging your bandwidth.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Acknowledging your bandwidth and honoring, like, truly honoring your bandwidth.

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Chris: Right. For you.

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Kayla: Such self care.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: Being able to say no to things and not feel guilty and bad about it. God, is that, like, if your friend was frazzled because everybody needs to go.

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Chris: What is wrong with you?

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Kayla: Everybody?

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Chris: Are you okay?

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Kayla: I'm sure I've talked about this on the show before. Everyone needs to go and watch that episode of Lizzie McGuire where she gets into activism and charity.

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Chris: Lizzie McGuire, yes.

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Kayla: There's an episode where she gets too into activism and charity that she basically, she's this 13 year old. She gets totally burnt out and accidentally gives away all of her things, including her own bed. And her parents helped her realize that, like, hey, you have burnt yourself out. You're no good to anyone. Like, you aren't helping the cause that you're championing because you don't even have a place to sleep. Now.

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Chris: It's like if you're picking apples from an apple tree, if you pick too many apples and you start taking the branches and the roots. Yeah. The tree's not there anymore, and you can't get apples from it.

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Kayla: Yeah. Remember the giving tree, everybody. Don't be the giving tree.

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Chris: Don't cut down the tree, and the tree is yourself.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: But, yeah. So that kind of goes. Ties back into those themes. And then also, you mentioned ripple effect. I feel like that ties into something we talked about last season when we talked about Pleistocene park, and we talked about virtuous cycles and feedback loops. The butterfly effect cuts both ways. Right. The butterfly effect can. Small things can have large negative consequences, but they can also have large positive consequences. And to your point, you know, if you're like, you know what? I'm going to focus on healthcare. And you just work on healthcare, that might make somebody else free up their time to work on something else, which pays it forward. And then maybe moving the needle on healthcare makes everyone a little freer to do things to help everyone else. And it can sort of, like, come into fruition that way.

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Chris: For a bit of a contrast, let's hear from Zach Mortis, who we interviewed to talk about the empire of tartaria. That was at the beginning of last season. I think it was episode four last season, I want to say.

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Kayla: So good.

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Chris: Yeah. His reply was a touch more succinct. And, hey, while we're talking about self care and self love today, this is okay. Verbosity is okay. Succinctness is okay. There's advantages to both methods of communication. So if you're verbose, that should shut up. Oh, and if you are succinct, speak up, say some damn wor. No. Oh, yeah, sorry. No, both things are okay. Zach tells us, quote, in this order, join a book club. Read your book before bed, go to bed early. End quote.

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Kayla: Man, I will say I haven't been to book club. I don't think I have the bandwidth for it. But I did get a library card this year.

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Chris: Mmm.

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Kayla: And getting books from the library.

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Chris: Your book club is. You constantly tell me about the shit you're reading. I am your book club. Oh, my God. Listen to this thing I just read.

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Kayla: I'm just saying, having a book and some sort of deadline on said book, like, you gotta return your book to the library, helps you read said book. And man, oh, man has reading a book. Not on my screen, on my phone, not reading an ebook. Reading a paper book.

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Chris: Like a physical book.

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Kayla: Yeah, really has helped put me to bed a number of times.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Haven't gone to bed early, but it helps me fall asleep.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Zach mortis. Good advice.

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Chris: Same thing. When I go to bed, I like to read like a playboy or a penthouse. And, you know, it really helps me relax. Those are books, right?

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Kayla: What is even the joke?

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Chris: It's sort of subverting the idea that, like, oh, are those books? No, they're just smut. Get it that there's a joke there? What do you mean? Whatever. You just don't have a good sense of humor.

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Kayla: I don't.

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Chris: Mister Mortis is not the only person who gave answer that had to do with nighttime and going to bed. Our musical producer, whom we also interviewed for a Patreon bonus episode last season. Two seasons ago. Season two, we talked to him about vehement about voluntary human extinction. He sent us a response that was slightly evening oriented. I am super okay with reading and attribution as long as I am attributed as some lameau, which is very much like him. So that's why I'm not saying his name, because he only wanted us to intribute him as some lame o. But he's obviously not lame enough to do our music, so that's pretty cool. Anyway, he continues, I would not describe myself as self caring, but I am sane. Some things that help keep me balanced. I walk alone at night a lot.

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Chris: This forces reflection and keeps me thinking introspectively rather than about the rest of the world. To countermand the above, I do ecstatic stuff as well. Playing music, video games with high reflex or pattern recognition skill caps. Listening to appliance noise. That's a new one. I didn't know he did that.

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Kayla: I'm sorry, what?

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Chris: Listening to appliance noise.

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Kayla: What does that mean?

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Chris: Eating and drinking good stuff, et cetera. This takes me out of my mind.

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Kayla: Explain to me what listening to appliances. I'm giving him a little bit of a hard time.

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Chris: I don't know what he means by that.

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Kayla: I need to know what listening to appliance noise means.

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Chris: I think our bonus episode.

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Kayla: I'm going to text him and ask.

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Chris: This is we're going to talk about what. What the hell our music producer means. When he says, I like to listen to appliance noise, he has another bullet. If I'm thinking too hard about deadlines, viruses, or midterm elections, I plan fun stuff for the future and get it on my calendar. Basic light at the end of the tunnel shit. None of this is revelatory or special, and I'm fairly neurotypical, but it's been working thus far over a pretty batshit couple of years, end quote. I like the light at the end of the tunnel thing. I think being able to anticipate things is, like, a huge part of our enjoyment. Like, I know, even, like, for trips, like, you go on a trip, it's like a week and a half, but the anticipation value of that is like two months, right?

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Kayla: Just get there.

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Chris: Well, it's not can just get there. It's that I'm looking forward to it.

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Kayla: Just get to that trip that I'll survive.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: No, but agreed. The having stuff to look forward to, and that was. I mean, that was part of what made the quote unquote lockdown phase of the pandemic so difficult for a lot of people, was not being able to have that and not being able to have that on both the small and large scale. Yeah, we couldn't. You couldn't plan a trip to go visit your family or a fun trip to go somewhere else. You also couldn't go to the movies. You couldn't go to dinner. You couldn't go and do those little things that, like, really make life worth living. And it's. Now it's hard to remember to keep incorporating those things in your daily life as you can, as is safe and possible to do.

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Chris: As a quick aside here, we totally recognize on the show that Covid is still around and the numbers are as high as they ever have been in certain points of the pandemic. So we're not saying, like, man, isn't it great that's over, but it's over. But we are in a different phase where we're post vaccine, and we're in a phase where there's enough immunity, or at least a combination of immunity and feeling of comfort. Some of it is truly a psychological that more people are doing more things. It has a different feel to it than the early pandemic did.

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Kayla: And it would be so nice. It would be so nice if we could still wear our masks at these things that. Cause that would really help. Like, go to the movies, but wear your mask. Getting political on the podcast.

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Chris: Yeah, that's political. In 2022. Yay. All right.

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Kayla: Anyway, wearing your mask is self care. How's that?

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Chris: I mean, it's also other things.

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Kayla: It's self care and community care. Wear your mask. It's fine.

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Chris: Another two people that replied to us also had answers that were evening sleep oriented. If you recall, back in season one, we talked to some tulpamancers and tulpas, and then in season two, we had an interview with Nikto and his tulpa suksi.

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Kayla: God bless the tulpas.

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Chris: Well, guess what? They both replied to my question about self care. So we get to hear what self care looks like to a tulpa.

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Kayla: Talk about the privileges of having a podcast.

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Chris: I know. And so for those of you guys that are not long time listeners, what a tulpa is it's a deliberately created, individuated personality that exists in the mind space of the meat bags. I mean, humans that create them. I think that's a pretty succinct as a definition, as I can give you about what a tulpa is, an imaginary friend on steroids. Does that make sense? Okay, so Nikto tells us it's important to take some time to do something nice for yourself. So on my weekends, I will put on some relaxing music, take my time getting out of bed, and take time making my breakfast. I usually am running around in the mornings, so taking some time to relax and do something nice for myself really helps. End quote. And then this is what Tzukesi had to say, and I'll try to read this.

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Chris: Should I try to read this with the accent in which it was typed, or is that a. Is that. Am I just setting myself up for a second?

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Kayla: I would not read it in an accent. You can just tell our listeners has a bit of a scottish accent. Yeah.

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Chris: So, okay, I will say the words as written, but I'm not going to try to do, like, the full blown accent.

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Kayla: Don't do an accent.

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Chris: Souxy says, get yourself some more sleep. I didn't even need to sleep, but I still take naps. Just because sleep is hella important for your mental state and too many peeps, ignore that. Also, take time to brush your teeth. It ain't a chore, it's taking care of yourself.

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Kayla: That is so true. Brush your teeth. Brush your teeth. And also try to not feel guilty if you can't. No, but that's really. That's a thing for, like, people. People with ADHD or overwhelm or burnout. You're told, like, you're supposed to brush your teeth at least twice a day or after every time you eat. And sometimes that can feel too overwhelming, and so then you just like, go, I didn't do it at all. If I didn't do it, if I didn't do it twice, and I just shouldn't do it at all. I am overwhelmed. Brush your teeth when you remember. Brush your teeth when you can. If it's one time a day, that's better than zero times a day. If you can floss, great.

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Kayla: If that's all you can do, just do what you can when you can and try to not hold yourself too much to the like, you better do it this many times or else, because then you're going to go, well, I didn't do it that many times, so I'll just do zero. No, anything is better than nothing. It is worth doing things half assed.

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Chris: Yeah, half assed things. Anything that's worth doing is worth doing half assed.

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Kayla: Do it.

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Chris: And I did like that Susie was talking about brushing your teeth because Susie doesn't have a physical body, so I thought that was cool. But, yeah, she knows what's going on. It's about taking care of yourself. And even something that feels like, oh, so you should do this. Every day is actually like, that's self care, too. If you start adding these things up, they can make you feel all right. Like, if you brush your teeth and then, you know, do like a nice face wash or maybe like, you take a nice shower, brush your teeth and then do a nice face wash and then put, like, some lotion on or something.

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Kayla: Why would you wash your face after you took a shower?

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Chris: Look, man, I'm just trying to string some things together.

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Kayla: I like your morning routine. Whatever you definitely don't do.

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Chris: I do some things. Oh, you literally just said that you shouldn't feel guilty for missing stuff, and now you are just tossing bombs of guilt and shame.

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Kayla: No, I think it was funny how clear it was that this wasn't your morning routine.

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Chris: No, this is not my morning routine. No, my morning routine is like, brush my teeth, put on deodorant, and that's. I'm done.

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Kayla: That's a good morning routine.

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Chris: Pretty much it. But adding some of these things in, adding in, you know, at the end of the day, taking a shower, adding in, you know, I don't know what's an example? The skincare stuff that can make you feel good. Yeah, so I like that Tsukzi said that. She also said that doesn't even need to sleep, but she still takes naps just because. And I think that's cool, too. Like, that's, you know, both. Nikto talked about that, too, about taking his time, getting out of bed on the weekends.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And that's another thing in our culture is just like, the less you sleep, the better of a person. You are. It's like I only sleep an hour and a half.

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Kayla: Guess what? 99% of people who say that. Fucking liars.

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Chris: Yeah. A, they're all liars. B, shut the hell up. Sleep is good. Sleep is something that we all need to do and how else it can be enjoyable.

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Kayla: Is your spinal fluid gonna get up into your brain and literally wash it? That's what happens when you sleep.

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Chris: Is that, like, for sure goes up and.

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Kayla: Yes. Yes, it is real. I don't know why, but it's real.

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Chris: That is very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

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Kayla: You're welcome.

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Chris: Learning new things is self care for me. For a lot of people, I'm putting the next two replies adjacent to each other because they share a common element of protecting your precious time, which I think is definitely a key pillar of good self care. Remember the person I interviewed offline for the twin Flames universe episode? They got back to me too.

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Kayla: Oh, boy.

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Chris: Here's what they had to say. So I guess the most important thing is setting good boundaries. As far as my time when researching or looking up stuff on the cult. And here they're talking about twin flames universe, I find myself going down rabbit holes and reliving past traumas. So I have to limit the amount of time that I can spend on it and also picking specific times during the week to do research. I found that if I research stuff when I have a task or a job to do later, it can sort of deregulate me for the rest of the day. So I definitely pick and choose days that I'm going to research things and the days where I need to be productive.

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Chris: On those days, I don't research cult stuff, and this is more applied to my own CPTSD, but could be helpful for an extremism researcher is immediately afterwards spending time outside with friends, pets, or family. If family is not stressful, this can kind of help break up the mood away from it, and you're sort of able to compartmentalize better. The same goes with a good walk or strenuous workout. It can help you get some distractions going, end quote. So you can see here they're talking about, like, actually it was funny. They said, this could be helpful for an extremism researcher. And that's the exact thing that Travis vu said was, I like to go outside.

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Kayla: Right, right.

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Chris: So there's that again. And then also. Yeah, like, putting boundaries on your time. Right, putting. It's kind of what you were saying earlier about saying no to things. But also, this person compartmentalizes, like, ugly research days with you know, against days that need to be productive, and then on those days, they don't do that. So I think that's, you know, that's another good thing. And our friend Molly Maeve Egan also had some things to say about protecting your own time first. And again, for those of you who are newer listeners, that's somebody we interviewed last season. She co wrote a book called behind Blue Curtains about abuse in the amish community. I encourage you to go listen to that episode. I think we called it the Blue Curtains. She says, hi, Chris and Kayla.

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Chris: My answer is a combo of not letting anything get in the way of yoga class or my chiropractor appointments and finding peer support networks, counseling, and groups in today's absence of quality, accessible mental health care, aka therapy. But I also indulge in podcasts like yours, especially true crime or shows like SVU. And while that feels like self care, in moderation, I have to monitor old coping skills like these that still feel good but can turn into avoidance. I think she makes a good point here. Like, first. Great that she also talked about protecting your time and putting your own time first. Right? Like, that's. I mean, I see that, like, with, you know, successful people. Like, that's one of the things they say they do is, like, protect my own time first.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: My time is my most important piece of my calendar. And then other people get time. And I like that she does that with her yoga class and her chiropractor appointments. But then she also talks about the sort of this difference between avoidance and self care. And I know that I. Oh, I do that frequently. Those bleed together over each other for me, like she says, watching SVU. For me, it's like playing video games, right? And, like, there's definitely some harm reduction there and then. It's better for me to be playing video games than, you know, whatever else for hours on end. But it's probably better for me still to not be playing the video game for hours on end. But here again, I try not to feel guilty about it. Cause that's counterproductive.

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Kayla: Right. Coping skills help you cope, right? Even if they maybe have downsides, they help you cope.

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Chris: My last little category, I guess, of responses involve folks that hit the physical activity and physical care side of self care. We heard from the very first person I ever interviewed for the show, oh, shit, way back. Who even is season one, episode four. I spoke with a friend of mine named Gareth and who was an expert on Star Citizen.

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Kayla: Yes, ma'am.

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Chris: And still is an expert, by the way. Do you know what their funding numbers are up to?

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Kayla: I don't want to know. I really don't. I forgot about that. That whole thing existed.

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Chris: So, keep in mind, when we did our Star Citizen episode.

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Kayla: Oh, God.

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Chris: Back in May of 2019, the number was at $216 million, an astronomical sum. So, do you want to know what they are at as of today, in 2022?

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Kayla: Yes, I do.

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Chris: $453 million.

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Kayla: I don't.

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Chris: I think they've more than doubled their funding.

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Kayla: I think that's maybe bad. I think that maybe they shouldn't have half a billion dollars.

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Chris: Well, I was talking to Gareth recently, and he was saying they have been putting content out like they have been updating their game. So I think it's sort of the same conclusion we. We had at the time, which is, like, this is crazy, but also, like. I don't know. People like it, and they're doing stuff like, they're not running, they're not absconding with the money.

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Kayla: Right, right.

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Chris: They're just taking an awful lot for what they're outputting. I don't know. I don't know. It's. It's. Go listen to our episode, I guess, if you want. This is, like a season one episode.

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Kayla: Turning into a clip show.

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Chris: I know. I know, right?

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Kayla: I.

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Chris: But, yeah, that's a lot of money. It's. Yeah. Nearly half a billion dollars. Or, to put it in perspective, Jeff Bezos could only personally fund the entirety of star Citizen 355 times before he went broke. So that's a lot of money.

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Kayla: Do you hear that sound?

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Chris: What?

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Kayla: You hear that sound?

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Chris: What's that sound?

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Kayla: That's the sound of me sharpening my guillotine.

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Chris: Great. We do not condone violence here on culture. Just weird.

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Kayla: I.

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Chris: Anyway, here's what Gareth had to say. Quote, my biggest thing has just been exercise. As both a mental and physical form of self care, I also learned the importance of skincare products, especially with the sunshine being so damaging. End quote.

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Kayla: Where your spF, everybody.

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Chris: I thought that was cool. Cause it was like, oh, yeah. That was. He's the only person that mentioned skincare, right? And I think it's cool that, like. And he's, like, a masculine dude, and he's talking about skincare. I think that's pretty cool. Like, that's. That's something that I think traditionally has not been an avenue open to men in our society.

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Kayla: Masculinity is, like, about getting burnt by the sun, and if you're gonna get in a car crash, you're gonna die like men and not wear your seatbelt.

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Chris: It's manly to get skin cancer and die early.

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Kayla: It's really not. It's not feminine to wear sunscreen and take care of your biggest organ in your body.

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Chris: Yeah. And I do off and on. Like, sometimes I'll get on a kick and I'm trying to build the habit of if I can, but I will say that, like, when I do kind of get on more of a skincare kick where I'm like, you know, I'm doing my nightly facial wash and, like, moisturizer stuff.

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Kayla: Right. It feels nice, right?

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Chris: Makes you feel nice. Men, you deserve to feel nice, too.

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Kayla: There can be a lot of pressure to have, like, a skincare routine that you do every day and you must do this, that, and the other. And it's like, yeah, if that works for you, great. And if it doesn't, if sometimes you do it and sometimes you don't, that's also okay. Wear the sunscreen as much as you can. But in terms of, like, doing your routine, it's okay if it's not an every single day thing and you don't have to feel guilty about that.

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Chris: Is that the title of the pod? Like, don't feel guilty.

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Kayla: Don't feel guilty.

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Chris: That's today's theme. I also heard from our friend over at recovering Hunbot, and I thought that her response was pretty appropriately themed because if you recall, the episode where we talked to her was our episode on Team Beachbody that was over team with an m team, not teen beachbody team, which is an MLM. So the exercise theme of her response really made sense here. She says it is a bit of a struggle for several reasons, but to work on this, and again, the prompt was self care routines, right? But to work on this, I now have a Fitbit, which is helping me get up and move. I am working up to 10,000 steps a day right now. The average is between 3000 to 5000. My best day was over 13,000, which I totally felt the next day.

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Chris: I also get a meal prep kit that has four dinners in it. My menu excludes red meat and I opt for seafood and chicken. Since the other members of my household do not eat like I do, as in, like, green things and healthy, I get two meals, dinner and lunch ready for the next day. After I'm able to do 10,000 steps in a day with ease, I want to get a bike. I used to race, but that was many moons ago, end quote. So here, recovering Hunbot is. Do we say her name? And I don't remember whether we said her name, I think she says it, but, like, just to be safe, I'm not gonna say it. Whatever. She has a channel called recovering Hunbot, so if you want to go, subscribe to that.

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Chris: She talks about MLM stuff, but, yeah, here she's talking about exercise and. And moving.

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Kayla: Yeah. Finding. Finding ways for movement to be incorporated into your life is great, and that's gonna look different for everyone. For some people, it's subscribing to the 10,000 steps idea. For some people, it's just getting out and going for a walk like we've talked about. For some people, it's gonna be sitting in your chair and, like, stretching, and for some people, it's gonna be laying in your bed and stretching. Like, there's no moral judgment on what kind of movement is best or how much movement you should be doing. It's about what makes your body feel good, what makes you feel good, and finding those, I love that recovering hunbot has found those ways to fit. The way she likes to eat, that makes her feel good, the way she likes to move, that makes her feel good into her life.

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Kayla: And that's something that we can all be doing a little bit and not to be like, oh, we all need to be working out. No, it's about moving your body in a way that feels good and eating in a way that makes you, that you like.

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Chris: Yeah, I used to like doing before I got my goddamn tennis, although I used to like lifting weights and playing basketball. Now it's more about leg stuff and hiking until I can get my elbow back in shape. But but, yeah, I, you know, it's always, like, after a hike or after a couple games of basketball, my body feels really good. Like, it's in that there's sort of this, like, I don't know what the word is. It's like this euphoric exhaustion, you know, where you're like, I'm exhausted, but it feels good. So, yeah, I like that. And last but not least, we heard back from lemuffin, which is the Reddit name of the throwawalian community super moderator, the guy that was somehow able to maintain a healthy online community containing skeptics, believers, and skeptics who wanted to believe in close encounter experiences.

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Chris: Thorwalian was about some believers in a close encounter experience with aliens.

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Kayla: So glad lemuffin got back to us.

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Chris: I know. I know. Lemuffin is awesome. And also, shout out, throw alien, folks. Hope you're staying salty and listening to some good bluegrass and shooting for those immobile goalposts. Still immobile goal post.

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Kayla: Say immobile.

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Chris: Immovable goal post. Yeah, yeah, but immobile goal post is a tongue twister.

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Kayla: I just discovered it typing.

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Chris: It was immobile.

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Kayla: Go post. Immobile goal post.

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Chris: Immobile goal post.

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Kayla: Immobile goal post. I can't say it. Goal post. Immobile.

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Chris: Alright, I'm gonna start a Reddit community called immobile goal.

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Kayla: The rural jurors.

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Chris: Rural juror. Alright, here's what lemuffin had to say. I have quite a few self care routines that I've built up over the years. The first and probably most impactful to me is meditation. This one seems to be repeated ad nauseam, and that's for good reason. Mindfulness really does wonders for mental health. I started with a two minute daily meditation about seven to eight years ago, and I've worked my way up to 210 minutes sessions per day. Now that I've built that muscle, I can take a deep breath at any point in the day and come back to the calm meditation state. Boy, that sounds pretty good. Moving the body is also very helpful. Running or lifting weights is great, but even just a short 1 minute stretch break when you're stressed makes a huge difference.

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Kayla: You want to know why?

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Chris: Are you a scientist? Are you a medical professional?

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Kayla: No. But I can tell you one of the reasons why any sort of movement feels really good and is great for your body.

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Chris: Why?

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Kayla: Because the lymphatic fluid in your body, unlike blood, which is pumped through your body via the muscle of your heart. Lymphatic fluid. And I am quoting my dietitian on this, who is like, educated in exercise science and dietetics. Moving the body moves. Lymphatic fluid.

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Chris: Lymphatic.

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Kayla: She doesn't move unless you move. And so that's why it's not about, like, making sure you're running real hard and lifting those weights and burning all. It's not about like, burning calories or anything like that. It's just about.

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Chris: It's also okay to run real hard.

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Kayla: Absolutely. But what I'm talking about is moving that lymphatic fluid. Any sort of movement is good enough, and sometimes we just need to allow ourselves to be good enough.

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Chris: Yeah, you have a series of lymphatic sort of. They're basically vessels, the same way you have blood vessels, except there's no heart for the lymphatic system.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: I don't know why our poor lymphatic system didn't get a heart. I feel like that's kind of an oversight.

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Kayla: Yeah, God.

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Chris: So whatever. But, yeah, so the only way that it moves around is by, literally, it's just the pumping action of, like, moving your arms and legs and body. Continuing with what lamuffin was saying. Other self care techniques would be showering and shaving regularly and connecting with family and friends regularly.

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Kayla: Oh, that's a good one. That we haven't really talked about. Like, the social, like, self care can also be social connections.

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Chris: Hanging out. Yeah. Especially if you're, like, an extrovert.

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Kayla: And actually, even honestly, we need it. Even if you're an introvert, we need it. And even if you are neurodivergent, everybody needs some sort of connection, whatever that is for you.

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Chris: I don't know. I vacillate back and forth whether I'm introverted or extroverted.

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Kayla: They're not real because.

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Chris: Yeah, I think they're not real because I'm always like, oh, man, I don't want to go hang out with so and so. And then I hang out with so and so, and I'm like, man, that was awesome. I'm so glad I did that. It's like, every single time, right? Lemuffin finishes up here saying, of course, these are all just my own self care routines, and others may have different techniques that work better for them. I don't believe it to be one size fits all type of thing. Anyway, great question, and I hope you all have a great day. Couldn't agree with them more about the one size fits all thing, too.

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Kayla: Absolutely.

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Chris: We've been saying here, maybe movement for you is about stretching. Maybe it's about running. Maybe it's about weights or swimming or basketball or yoga.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And maybe your self care is more oriented along something mental, like meditation versus something physical. Or maybe it's about brushing your teeth or getting more sleep. There's a lot of different options, and that's kind of why I referred to it early on as, like, a toolbox. Right. It's a toolbox. Here's all the tools and all these other folks toolboxes. Pick and choose. Hopefully we gave you some ideas here. That was actually the last of the responses. Anything you want to add to anything anybody said there?

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Kayla: Does that sentence make sense? Feel like I have more to say.

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Chris: Why do you feel like that?

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Kayla: Because I feel like you're not putting a button on this. What else do you have up your sleeve?

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Chris: That's almost it. We'll get to that. But before I get to what's up my sleeve, I know we basically replied, like, in line to everything that we reacted in line. So there's you know, there's nothing to really ask you here in terms of, like, which one is your favorite. But I do want to ask you because I want to talk a little bit about our self care stuff. What are some things that you do, Kayla, for self care?

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Kayla: Remembering to take my adderall.

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Chris: That's good.

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Kayla: See my baby take your medicine. Yeah. Remembering to take that, because then I. Yeah, it's a much. It's a much different day for me when I.

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Chris: How do you remember to do that? Do you, like, set a reminder in your calendar or.

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Kayla: That's a great question, and I don't have any.

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Chris: Do you put a post it note? I think you need a system.

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Kayla: I have them sitting on my end table so they see them.

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Chris: We should train one of our cats to bring you.

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Kayla: I see them.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: All right. No, I do. I have built in a system of, like, I. When I eat my morning meal, I take whatever vitamins, medications, whatever that I need to take for the day, I take them with my morning meal. And so if I'm planning on taking my Adderall that day, that is when I take them. And that is when I am able to have the kind of day that I want.

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Chris: Good.

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Kayla: I have. I will be able. If I remember to take my Adderall, I will be able to remember to do other self care things that I want to do, like checking items off of my to do list that I need to do. Handling the chores that I need to do.

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Chris: Checking items on a checklist is pretty good, y'all.

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Kayla: That's pretty much paying the bills that I need to pay, making the appointments that I need to make. Exercising and that is another thing that goes along with having an ADHD diagnosis. Exercise is helpful with managing symptoms. I don't know why, but cardio, supposedly, cardio in the morning is, like, real good for helping to manage the symptoms. Eating protein in the morning is real helpful to manage the symptoms. Those are some of the things that I do to set myself up for even being able to move through my day in a reasonable way, figuring out ways to incorporate movement that aren't, like, based in punishment or, like, anything punitive of, like, oh, I gotta, you know, work off that meal.

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Kayla: Like, anything that's about any exercise that comes for me, that comes from a place of, like, I need to do this in order to earn something to eat or burn off something that I need to eat or need to change the way my body looks or need to change the functioning of my body. Those are not self care for me. Those are all things that come from a negative place and self care when it comes to movement for me. I want to come at it from a place of. I want to get my body moving. I want to help manage my adhd, I want to move my lymphatic stuff around. I want to get the benefits of the endorphins. I want to break up my day. Sometimes having some sort of exercise can just help break up the monotony of a work day.

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Kayla: And finding new things that can fit into that framework for me is really helpful. Like, I just found something the other day called join. J O y N. It's not how you spell join. It's not how you spell join. It's how you spell this platform. It's an online platform where there's, like, exercise videos, and it's all different kinds of movement, and it is all. It comes from a place of accessibility and size inclusivity. And it's so nice. It's so nice to be able to go to, like, an exercise class on the Internet, and it's about just, like, moving your body in a kind and loving way and not a punishing way. And that's been. That's been. That's been really helpful the last little bit.

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Chris: That's really nice.

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Kayla: Yeah. I'm sure there are other things that. That I do on a day to day basis. Those are the big things that are coming to mind, but I could probably talk for hours about this, so I would. I would also like to ask you, what are some things that you do?

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Chris: Yeah. Like, there's. There's a lot. I liked everything you said about activity being, like, positive oriented, like, non punishing. I am much more likely to do something if I don't see it as, like, a chore. If I see it instead, as like, oh, I'm gonna go play basketball, fun, or, oh, I'm gonna go swim or something. That's fun. Or even going on a hike with a friend or something like that. Right? Like, it's fun. It's not.

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Kayla: You're checking two things off the box. You're doing movement, you're doing social.

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Chris: That's true. Yeah. Efficiency is where.

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Kayla: Efficiency of self care.

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Chris: Yeah. But I also. I'll add to that. I also like progress. Like, progress is fun to me. That's part of why I like the weightlifting is because I like to be able to say, like, ooh, this week I'm lifting 100, and last week it was 95. So I like having that sort of week to week progress feels kind of fun. Sort of like, from a gaming standpoint, almost my other self care things. Like, I've talked about this on the show before, but I've taken up art, drawing and digital art as sort of a hobby lately, and I've found it.

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Kayla: You're really good at it.

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Chris: I'm okay. I felt that to be pretty rewarding. It's sort of like playing video games where it's a bit of like a distraction, but it feels more like fulfilling than just dropping in front of the computer screen for that for several hours.

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Kayla: From an outside perspective, you are a more balanced person since you have started your art. I would say that is a. I can't say it's quantitative, quantifiable words.

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Chris: Quantificative.

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Kayla: Yeah, that. But I will say that I have noticed and observed that, yes.

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Chris: And, you know, a lot of the things that we already talked about are also on my list. Being in nature, we talked about that. Just reminding myself that the world goes on. Right? Touching grass, those things are good. Seeing a sunset, seeing beautiful things that still exist no matter, you know, what bullshit thing is happening on Twitter.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: That's really nice.

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Kayla: Oh, I have two things that I didn't say.

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Chris: Drinking water.

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Kayla: Oh, okay. Drink three things. Lots of water. No, I have two things that are like, really, like, you can do this right now. Fast things to do that have been really helpful to me. One, if you feel anxious or overwhelmed, put an ice pack on your chest.

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Chris: Oh, yeah.

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Kayla: You sit with an ice pack on your chest for a little bit. Helps you.

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Chris: Maybe it helps ground you.

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Kayla: Helps ground me. And same thing. If you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling stagnant, if you're feeling overwhelmed, shake. I think we've talked about shaking on this podcast before. Like, you know, how you can, like, wring your hands, do that with your whole body, shake your body for a minute and it helps.

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Chris: Yeah. I also, you know, for me, therapy and medication is on my list. One person mentioned therapy, but I feel it's, it bears mentioning because self care can means, yeah, medical self care in some cases. Sleep is big for me too. My sleep can get really derailed when things are going stressfully. And I try to make sure I at least get enough, even if it's at weird hours. And there's. Yeah, there's a bunch of other things I can list. Maybe this, we'll probably talk about this a little bit in our, like, Patreon polls. Probably do some additional posting there about what we all do for self care. Anyway, I thought all those answers were really awesome.

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Chris: If any of you guys are listening to us right now, thank you so much for sharing your self care strategies with us, particularly because I feel this kind of question is actually, like, borderline kind of a personal, almost intimate question. So I really appreciate you opening up your heart like this for the show. But actually, there's one more person that we haven't heard from yet that did get back to us, who I spoke again with QAnon, researcher and friend of the show Mike Rothschild, and I caught up with him on his strategies for self care.

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Chris: So I want to ask you about, sort of like, what your personal mental health routine is, because, I mean, this work, this, like, conspiracy extremism research I know is, like, super emotionally taxing, you know, working in this space, what do you do to keep yourself sane and healthy? Sure.

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Mike Rothschild: That's a great question. And what I do is I treat this work like work. I have working hours. I, you know, usually about 830 in the morning. About five or 530, sometimes a little bit earlier. If I've got something going on with my kids, that's my work time. That's when I'm in all of the awful places and watching terrible videos and reading all the anti semitic garbage. That's. That's my work day. And when I'm done, I try to log off. I spend that time with my family. I, you know, starting to see more friends again. Now that the restrictions are easing a little bit. I'm not up all night every night, diving into the weirdest corners of this. I log off on the weekends. You know, I try to spend as little time as I can on social media. On the weekends.

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Mike Rothschild: I try to devote that time to my family or just doing other things around my house. You know, at nighttime, I don't go on Twitter. I watch something on Netflix or I watch a movie, or I try to get sucked into the normal things that the rest of us do to entertain ourselves, to indulge in storytelling. I love sports, all that stuff. I play a lot of baseball with my kids. I try to keep this stuff in the place where it belongs, which is my workday. And when I'm not doing that, I try to give it as little of my attention as possible, because I know it's all going to be there the next day. Whatever viral threads going around, if I miss it. There's going to be another one.

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Mike Rothschild: As much as this stuff penetrates into our daily discourse, it does not require my attention. Twenty four seven. And I think more highly of myself than to do that and I've seen it happen to people. I've seen people who are just way too deep into this work get completely sucked in by it, and I don't want that to happen to me. You know, I don't want to look back on my life and say, man, I wish I'd spent less time on super racist telegram and more time playing with my kids. You know, that's not okay to me. So. So that's what I do, is I try to treat this as a job the way everybody else treats their job. And when I'm done with it for the day, and then, you know, it'll be there when I come back to it in the morning.

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Chris: That's. That's a great technique. Do you ever find it, and I'm asking this because, like, I find this challenging for myself is just sometimes, like, the. Or maybe even frequently, depending, but the sort of the bleed over. Like, I. Maybe not as strict as you are, and maybe that's where my. Maybe that's where my issue comes in.

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Mike Rothschild: I'm not always that strict, but I try.

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Chris: Yeah, maybe that is the answer is, like, try to be disciplined about it, because I do find myself being like, oh, I'm gonna go on Twitter, like, when I probably shouldn't.

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Mike Rothschild: Yeah.

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Chris: Yeah. So do you. Do you find that you do that? And if so, like, is that. Do you have, like, a strategy for being, like, do you have, like, a little rule of thumb or anything that, like, helps you maintain that. That boundary?

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Mike Rothschild: You know, I try to just focus on whatever I'm doing. So if I'm at one of my kids baseball practices, I will focus on that. And, you know, whatever's going on Twitter, it'll be there another time. You know, maybe I will take a quick look at night before I start watching something, but then I'm done. So it's hard because, of course, now with, as we talk, we've got the war going on, and then, I mean, there's constant information coming in about that, and it's actually stuff I'm really interested. But at the same time, there has to be a point where I do other things and know that all of that stuff is still going on. You know, I can contribute to the discourse tomorrow, but tonight I'm watching the expanse, and that's going to be cool, and I'm going to enjoy that.

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Mike Rothschild: And then whatever tomorrow brings. And I just try to live my life and enjoy the things I enjoy and. And sort of have everything in its proper place.

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Chris: I love the expanse.

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Mike Rothschild: Yeah.

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Chris: Yeah. Well, that's it for me today. You know, if you have anything else you want to add or plug or talk about or anything, now's the time.

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Mike Rothschild: Sure. You can still get my book on QAnon. The storm is upon us. You can find me on Twitter othchildmd. I'll have hopefully some more announcements coming soon about other stuff I'm working on. So, yeah, I'm out there and I'm not that hard to find.

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Chris: All right. Thanks for coming back on the show, Mike.

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Mike Rothschild: Absolutely. I'm happy to appreciate it.

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Chris: So it's good hearing from Mister Rothschild again. I actually talked to him for a lot longer than that. I think we're probably going to put some of that in a future episode. We talked about what he's working on right now and how it relates to some of the QAnon stuff and all that.

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Kayla: No, I need updates. I need updates on what's going on in the world of QAnon.

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Chris: Well, I don't want to spoil too much. He's definitely keeping up with that. But he's also taking a broader approach with his latest work. He's working on another book. I won't spoil it. But yeah, he's sort of getting into, he's doing the context thing. He's getting deep into the history and looking into, like, why do these, some of these tropes keep coming back and back? That actually ties a little bit into what were talking about with Mike Caulfield the other day. But today we're here to talk about his answer to the self care question.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And so his answer is pretty much along the lines of protecting your time. Right. So it was like, that was kind of one of the sub themes we identified. Right. And so he likes to be very diligent about when he's on work and off work. It sounds actually very similar to the answer that twin Flames universe person gave us about, like, only do the research on the days when you know that you're not going to be productive otherwise.

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Kayla: And it also relates to Stephanie McNeil's answer from the final episode of last season.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, we did ask her this question.

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Kayla: She also said basically, like, she said that she doesn't even go on social media on the weekends.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: And I've thought about that a lot. I have not yet done it, and I will. And Mike Rothschild reminded me of this, and I probably will not yet do it, but it is good to be reminded that it's not great self care to be on the social media at all hours of the day, every day. It's probably very. It sounds like it's been very helpful to people like Mike Rothschild and twin flames universe person and Stephanie McNeil and others to be able to figure out how to, like, yeah. Block off time for that and not just be. Not just accessing the muck in the mire 24/7 yeah.

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Chris: One of the things that I find challenging about that, actually, let me first say, I almost like one of my episode ideas for this season is, like, to somehow, like, personal blog, my extraction from Twitter. Like, I kind of want to extract from Twitter and talk about how that goes. So, TBD, we might do an episode on that. I'm not sure how much culture.

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Kayla: Just weird. Maybe getting off of Twitter.

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Chris: Yeah, we'll see. I guess tweet at me if you don't want that to happen. If you're like, no, we love your Twitter, but I don't think it adds a ton of value. I think to really get a ton of value out of Twitter, you do have to be extremely active and be posting a lot about things that are trending, and that's just not something that I do. And so I think that, like, my own personal negative from Twitter probably outweighs the positive we get from reminding people that we publish every other Tuesday, which is like, the main thing. So maybe. Maybe we'll be getting off Twitter. I don't know. We'll see. In terms of the compartmentalization.

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Chris: I know I struggle with that a lot, and I think part of why I struggle with it a lot is because I use the culture just weird Twitter as also my personal Twitter. So it's like, really hard for me to separate that. That's something I've meaning to work on in terms of, like, what are some actionable sort of processes? For me, it's. It's about crowding out. Like, I have a hard time being like, I'm just not going to do this. I have a much easier time replacing going online with something else. So that. Where. That's where we can get into things. Like maybe coping by playing video games or the drawing. Yeah, exactly. So reading a book, spending time doing that stuff, watching tv, going on a.

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Kayla: Walk, I find myself picking up a book and then sometimes if my phone is within arm's reach, I'll reach for the phone. It's not good, especially if somebody has adhd. I know it's much more rewarding for the dopamine to have the scroll than to read the book. So maybe if you're gonna read your book, put your phone where you can't reach it.

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Chris: Yeah. So. I know. I know. Mike and some of our other respondees mentioned that it's good to sort of, like, set specific, like, calendar boundaries. And to that I will add, if not doing something is difficult for you, try crowding it out with something else.

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Kayla: Right. Good advice.

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Chris: All right, Caleb, so there's no criteria, again, because we're not. Again, this is not a cult. We just talked to a bunch of previous friends of the show. So we're not going to go through the criteria today because we're not judging if something's a cult or not. You can call this episode the self care occult. Self care can be a cult.

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Kayla: I think it's absolutely an interesting episode to do about the, like, the wellness appropriation of self care and the grift appropriation and the optimization culture of self care.

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Chris: That's a slippery.

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Kayla: We got to be careful with the word self care because there's some bad actors that utilize it to, like, not really make you feel any better about.

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Chris: Your life and, like, the demand for it, too. Like, that's the other thing. I hope this episode, I hope we don't get across is, like, it. Sometimes it feels like there's a demand for self care. Like, you. Are you not self caring, you better self care, which is, like, completely counterproductive. Right? So it's kind of like, you know what? If you forget to brush your teeth tonight, if you're not getting good sleep, if you didn't do your hike today or your, you know, or your activity tomorrow, whatever, like, it's okay if you miss stuff. Like, it's not, you better do self care or else you piece of shit. Like, that's not what we want. And we don't want that slippery slope into, like, I'm optimizing. I'm doing this routine. It's kind of like were talking about the skincare routine.

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Chris: Like, if you don't do it every day, then, like, there's something wrong, right? That is not the case. And we don't want to be getting that across. And I think you're right that there's a slippery slope from, like, must do self care to, like, a culty sort of wellness exploitative version of it. Anyway, Kayla, I hope you and our listeners found today's episode helpful and maybe even motivating. I hope we're maybe able to make a small difference for you guys by spreading some good, helpful information around. And next time, maybe. Maybe I'll talk about something a little more crazy. We'll get to that. So take care of yourselves out there. Everyone, this is Chris, this is Kayla, and this has been self care corner. Self care corner of cultist weird.